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Friday, May 29, 2015

SUICIDES IN FUKUSHIMA ... JAPNESE GOVERNMENT GRABS LAND FROM DISPLACED CITIZENS

THE RADIATION AND CONTAMINATION THAT HAS CONTINUED FROM THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI #1 NUCLEAR PLANT HANGS LIKE THE PROVERBIAL SWORD OF DAMOCLES OVER THE HEADS OF ALL WHO WERE EVACUATED, AND, REALLY, ALL OF JAPAN. JAPAN SITS ASTRIDE ONE OF THE MOST SEISMICALLY ACTIVE FAULTS ON THIS PLANET.

JAPAN HAS ACTIVE AND AWAKENING VOLCANOES, FREQUENT "SUPER TYPHOONS", TSUNAMIS ARE WELL KNOWN THERE.

AND NOW IT HAS A RUNAWAY, MULTI-REACTOR NUCLEAR MELTDOWN ONGOING AFTER 51 LONG MONTHS, MORE THAN 4 YEARS, WITH NO END IN SIGHT, NO HOPE TO STOP THE DAILY POISONING OF THE ENVIRONMENT, NO PRESENTLY KNOWN WAY TO EVEN BEGIN A CLEANUP OF THE AREA . SOME CITIZENS JUST CAN'T STAND UP TO THE BLEAKNESS OF THEIR FUTURE, THE UNCERTAINTIES, THE CONSTANT BETRAYAL BY TEPCO AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, THE UNENDING LIES AND COVERUPS, THE LOSS.

DEPRESSION TAKES ON A WHOLE NEW MEANING WHEN FACED WITH ALL THIS PREYING ON OVERSTRESSED HUMAN MINDS.AN ENTIRE WAY OF LIFE FOR THESE PEOPLE IS GONE FOREVER, HOMES THAT WERE OCCUPIED FOR GENERATIONS AS WELL AS NEW HOMES ARE ALL UNINHABITABLE, THE LAND THEY LOVED IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE ON SAFELY.SOME LOST EVERYTHING, INCLUDING FAMILY MEMBERS. THERE ARE STILL OVER 15,000 MISSING PERSONS FROM THE EARTHQUAKE/TSUNAMI DISASTER THERE. SOME SIMPLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO FACE ALL THIS, SO THEY DECIDE NOT TO...THEY CHOOSE SUICIDE.

Officials said Iwate and Miyagi, the two other prefectures hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunami, had fewer disaster-related suicides.The number was 30 in Iwate and 37 in Miyagi.

Since 10 people in Fukushima took their lives in 2011, the number has risen steadily, reaching 13 in 2012 and 23 in 2013.As of July, 10 suicides in the prefecture had been recorded this year.

Factors such as suicide notes and relatives’ statements are used to help determine whether 3/11 contributed to a person’s death."

THE PROBLEM WITH THESE STATISTICS IS (1) THEY ARE GOVERNMENT STATISTICS, AND THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT HAS DECLARED THAT EVEN NEW CANCERS, BIRTH DEFECTS, RADIATION SICKNESS, ET AL, MUST NOT POINT TO FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT! NEITHER WOULD SUICIDES BE ALLOWED TO BE REPORTED, WOULD THEY?AND, (2) SOME FAMILIES MAY NOT REPORT SUICIDES BECAUSE OF THE SOCIAL STIGMA INVOLVED, ESPECIALLY IF A DEATH CAN BE BLAMED ON SOMETHING "NATURAL" OR "ACCIDENTAL". WE'VE ALL SEEN FAMILIES IN DENIAL AFTER A FAMILY MEMBER TAKES HIS/HER OWN LIFE.Court rules TEPCO liable for damages in woman’s suicideSeptember 04, 2014

Previous, similar suicide lawsuits had been settled through pre-trial mediation. After this decision, TEPCO issued an apology."

AN APOLOGY?

BUT NOT AN APOLOGY THAT INCLUDED THE FACT THAT TEPCO KNEW FULL WELL THAT THEIR DAIICHI PLANTS LIE RIGHT OVER A MAJOR FAULT WHICH HAS SPAT OUT HIGH MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKES HISTORICALLY, LONG BEFORE NUCLEAR ENERGY OR WEAPONS WERE KNOWN, AND THAT, WITH THOSE EARTHQUAKES, THERE HAD BEEN HORRIFIC TSUNAMIS LIKE THE ONE OF 3/11.

ONLY THE GREEDY WOULD DENY THAT, RECOGNIZE THE HAZARDS OF BUILDING A MULTI-REACTOR NUCLEAR FACILITY OVER SUCH A FAULT, AND THEN BUILD THOSE TWO PLANTS ANYWAY.[THERE IS A DAIICHI #2 FACILITY, NEARBY.]

AN INDEPENDENT PANEL OF EXPERTS CHARGED TEPCO WITH FAILURETO CONSIDER ALL THE ABOVE BEFORE BUILDING THOSE PLANTS, AND ALSO
FOUND THAT THE DAIICHI MANAGEMENT DID ALMOST NOTHING TO WARN RESIDENTS OR WORKERS OF THE INITIAL MELTDOWNS OR EXPLOSIONS.

IN ABOUT A MONTH, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ALMOST STOPPED REPORTING ANYTHING ABOUT THE FATES OF THE SURVIVORS, THE DISPLACED RESIDENTS OF FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE AND SURROUNDING AREAS. NONE REPORTED ON THE UPSWING IN SUICIDES IN APRIL, MAY, JUNE...IT WAS AS IF THE WHOLE WORLD CHOSE TO IGNORE THE PEOPLE, IGNORE WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO THE PEOPLE.

Spring, Sakura and Suicide"As if to take advantage of the precise timing of the media evacuation, the municipal government of Minami-soma city, Fukushima Prefecture began implementing a blueprint planned some time earlier. In the dead of night on Monday April 16th, the city lifted the no-entry regulations and changed evacuation zone designations that had stood since March 12, 2011. The decision allowed people to return to the district of Odaka and some parts of the Haramachi district. Watanabe Ichie, a volunteer from Tokyo who witnessed the scene near the roadblock into the zone observed that: “several police vehicles with flashing red lights arrived after 23:00 on April 15th. By 0:15, all the vehicles had gone”. “After that, all that remained was the light from the traffic signals.” The following morning, cars moved freely inside the once-prohibited area. The 56-year-old mayor of Minami-soma has been single all his life and has no children. In interviews, he tends to downplay the risk of radiation. In the first week of May 2011, he even joked: “Fukushima is not the same as Hiroshima or Nagasaki. No one even knows for sure how many people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. Regardless of radiation, the cancer rate in our world is quite high. Yet people appear to be afraid of radiation, which is like a ghost that never appears.”

The city reopened the no-entry zone in May, insisting that radiation levels in Odaka and some parts of Haramachi had fallen enough to be safe. However, some residents are unhappy with this decision. Shibaguchi Takashi (42), a former acupuncturist and the father of a 6-year-old daughter Nana, refuses to return to his home inside the former exclusion zone, preferring his temporary accommodation. “The city says that the radiation level is completely safe, but when my neighbors checked the radiation level under the eaves of my house, it was over two microsieverts.” (henceforth, μSv) He added: “I am sure that radioactive materials released immediately after the explosion are unchanged on the leaking roof. I believe it is too dangerous to go back there.”

Even if it were safe, Odaka has other problems: “There is no reconstruction of public facilities and infrastructure, and I wonder how we can make a living there.”

The area is like a wasteland. There is almost no life, most facilities are closed, the shopping street is dead and everything has basically frozen in time since March 11, 2011.

In many places, water is leaking as the tsunami and earthquake shifted the ground. Debris from the disaster is scattered everywhere, and houses, shrines and infrastructure are badly damaged.

April is a symbolic month in Japan because thousands of students enter new schools. Some public schools in the city that were closed amidst fears of high radiation are now able to reopen, based on the results of the local governmental reports on decontamination.

But Miura Bansyo, a Buddhist priest and anti-nuclear activist, has disputed government claims that schools are safe. He and other members of his NGO confirmed radiation of 2 – 9 uSv per hour at a number of spots on the school route around the Ishigami Daiichi Elementary School in February 2012. Disregarding his warnings, the elementary school was reopened on February 27th, accommodating hundreds of pupils.

Suzuki Tokiko (64), who lives near the Yonomori Park, detected 0.97 uSv per hour there with her own dosimeter on April 20th. When she informed the city, she says they responded that “The radiation level is low and you can enjoy cherry blossom viewing without problems.”

CHILDREN PLAY THERE.

After the crisis began on April 19th, 2011, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology announced that the amount of radiation a child can be exposed to in one year is 20 millisieverts.

This figure is 20 times higher than the former exposure ceiling of 1 millisievert per year. Dr. Koide Hiroaki, assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Nuclear Reactor Experiment Research Center, criticized those standards in a discussion with the author in January: “Japan is supposed to be a law-abiding country. So, legally, we should not expose ordinary people to more than 1 millisievert a year”, he said. He explained, “I am considered ‘a radiation worker’ since I work at a radiation research laboratory at Kyoto University. The upper limit of radiation exposure per year for me is 20 millisieverts."

“The government is pushing this standard on ordinary people, including children. That is a very high exposure level that goes beyond the imagination,” he said angrily.

In the beautiful season of spring, under a bed of Sakura petals, there is a hidden facet of life here that the Japan media and the state do little to publicize — the surging suicide rate among evacuees.

Local counselors in northeast Japan agree that suicide cases among the evacuees in temporary houses is rising due to their isolated and hopeless situation after being evacuated from their communities.

Many people in the devastated areas are suspicious of the official statistics. Has the government fabricated the figure to avoid panic?

Why is the suicide rate in Tohoku so low despite the fact that articles even in the mainstream media have highlighted the problem of suicides in temporary housing?

Domae Syogo, who heads a local NGO called “Kyodo-No-Tsudoi Net” in Iwaki city, 40 kms from the radiation exclusion zone, does not believe the government’s figure. He reports that at least 50 people have taken their own lives in temporary houses in Iwaki city. The elderly are the most vulnerable. “In most cases, the evacuees live in isolation and lack communication with others. They choose to die by starvation, refusing to eat.” Domae himself has been a witness to inspections conducted after the suicide of an evacuee.

Domae says that the official suicide figures have been fabricated to save face. “Nobody in the bureaucracy wants to take responsibility for the deaths of these people. In order to conceal their fault, police and city officials press hard for cover-ups, such as by classifying the suicides as accidents or death from sickness.”

Suicide cases are expected to grow. Dr. Noda Fumitaka, a psychiatrist at Yotsuya Yui Clinic in Tokyo, explains why. “In the first year after the disaster, people do not have enough room to consider their own psychological health as they are striving so hard to restore their material lives to where they were before the disaster. What they lost returns to them with the strongest impact at around the first-year anniversary.”

“Mental care, especially during this crucial period is vital and we need to take care of these people,” he stresses. At the same time, the number of volunteers coming to Fukushima and northeast Japan has plummeted and many volunteer groups face bankruptcy and the shutdown of their activities for want of donations and staff.

A Crime Wave in the Wake of Disaster

Behind the doors, in Iwaki city, there is another story that rarely appears openly in the media. Violent crimes conducted by nuclear workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Iwaki city is the staging area for workers from the plant.

Every three months, hundreds of new faces have been coming to the city in rotation; the average period that a worker can work on site is about three months due to the cap on radiation exposure.

[WORKERS ARE LIMITED TO 3 MONTHS EXPOSURE, BUT NOT THE CHILDREN AND ADULTS LIVING THERE!]

Fujinami Keiko, a mother of a high school girl, explained why journalists have not publicized these cases: “The Japanese media do not want to escalate the confrontation against TEPCO, a major sponsor, by picking up on the crimes of their subcontracted workers.”

LIES ABOUT CONTAMINATION

Possibly angry at this situation, on April 21st a 62-year-old nuclear worker broke the silence on the continued leakage of contaminated water from Fukushima Daiichi. Speaking to me, he requested anonymity for fear of losing his job. He supervises a construction site aimed at building a new facility to extract radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium from the contaminated water used to cool the plant’s crippled reactors. He revealed that the current facility removes only cesium and that other radioactive materials such as strontium cannot be cleaned up.

After being used to cool the reactors, the water contains massive amounts of radioactive substances and is put into the water-processing facility so it can be recycled for use as a coolant. “Everyone there knows that the amount of water is huge but does not speak about it. Anyone who works there understands that nothing can be done except to leak the water!” he stressed. "Everyone criticizes North Korea for its missiles. But what about Japanese morality? The contamination will spread all over the world, reaching to Kamchatka, Hawaii and the U.S. soon,” he added.

Toward the end of our conversation, he said, “You know, in Japan, there is ‘honne’ (honest feeling) and ‘tatemae’ (polite-face). “Our tatemae is that we are doing our utmost to stop the leakage of contamination, and our honnne is that we are dumping massive amounts of contaminated water into the ocean.”

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in December announced a new standard for safe drinking water of 10 becquerels of cesium per kilogram. The ministry had previously set a provisional standard of 200 becquerels per kilogram (cesium), 300 bec (iodine), 20 bec (uranium) and 1 bec (plutonium) for drinking water, according to the official press release on March 17th.

SURELY ALL WHO SURVIVED THE MULTIPLE CATASTROPHES ON 3/11 COULD SUFFER FROM THAT.

SURELY, FACING SUCH DAILY CHAOS AND UNCERTAINTY AS THE REPORTER RELAYED TO US THE PEOPLE ARE EXPOSED TO, SUICIDES WOULD SKYROCKET.

WE MAY NEVER KNOW HOW MANY, BUT ONE SUICIDE THAT MAY HAVE BEEN PREVENTABLE, HAD TEPCO AND THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT BEEN HONEST, RESPONDED HONORABLY WITH GREAT CARE FOR THOSE CITIZENS, IS ONE SUICIDE TOO MANY!

THE JAPANESE HEALTH MINISTRY OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE HEALTH OF THOSE SENT BACK INTO CONTAMINATED AREAS TO DIE SLOWLY.

"Almost everyone in the town of Namie heeded the evacuation orders. Masami Yoshizawa is one of the few people still living there today. Although he made the decision to stay, he doubts that many of his neighbors will return. “How do you change this most contaminated area into towns where people can live?” he asked. “Our towns have turned into Chernobyl. …And if people return, what will they do? They won’t return.”After testing positive for internal exposure to cesium 134 and 137, Masami has undergone careful monitoring at a radiation research hospital.

The scale of it all is difficult to swallow. But America Tonight traveled to the region and met some of the individuals who are most affected by, and affecting, the aftermath. Meet the people fighting to rebuild, the workers decontaminating the land, the families too terrified to return home, the advocates chanting “never again” and the people who have profited off it all."

HOW CAN ANYONE GO BACK WHO KNOWS WHAT'S STILL GOING ON?TEPCO AND THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUE THE LIES AND COVERUP!

Fukushima Diary reports that “Tepco and the government of Japan have been saying though molten fuel had a core-concrete reaction in [the] pedestal, but [has] stopped sinking in the concrete.” Now Tepco is starting to admit the fuel may be “outside of [the] pedestal", Tepco needs to investigate the sub-basement floor of Reactor 1. It is reported that the feasibility of inspection would be confirmed in the end of 2015”. Maybe they are now getting ready to admit it is indeed outside the concrete floor."

NOT YET.THEY MAY NEVER ADMIT IT, BUT THERE IS A WAY TO FIND OUT AND TEPCO BLEW THAT OFF!

IT'S CALLED MUON COSMIC RAY SCANNERS.TEPCO SAID THAT COSTS TOO MUCH AND THEY ARE OUT OF MONEY.FROM BEFORE DAIICHI #1 WAS BUILT UNTIL NOW, TEPCO HAS TRIED TO "GET OUT CHEAPLY", MAKE MORE PROFITS, ACCEPT SHODDINESS INSTEAD OF QUALITY, AND DAMN THE LIVES THAT HAS COST AND WILL COST! AS NANCY FOUST OF SIMPLY INFO EXPLAINED:"At some point the true state of Daiichi will have to be made public. The true state must be known and understood in order to do the needed research towards whatever resolution is determined to be the end goal. Right now that is fuel retrieval so the buildings could eventually be torn down. The muon scans are a step in that direction. They can use those to establish if any fuel is left in the reactors or not. If you remember back to 2011 TEPCO was insisting that most of the fuel was still in the reactor vessels. As more data is completed TEPCO is forced to admit reality.

The next step after the muon scans for units 1-3 is to put the Hitachi shape changing robot into containment. If that goes as planned it will tell them where the fuel is, or isn’t. That is going to be the huge bit of data. Once the fuel is located and disclosed the extent of the meltdowns will have to be admitted. IMHO this is why LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) is so intent on getting reactors restarted right now." BUT TEPCO SOMEHOW FOUND A WAY TO CONDUCT A MUON SCAN...JUST ONE PROBLEM:

THEY "FORGOT" TO TELL TOSHIBA TO SCAN THE BOTTOM OF THE REACTOR TO SEE IF THE FUEL HAD BURNED THROUGH INTO THE GROUND.LATER, TOSHIBA SAID THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DANGEROUS TO ITS EQUIPMENT AND THOSE WORKING ON THE WALL TO SCAN THE BOTTOM OF THE REACTOR, BUT ASSURED THE PRESS THAT THEY FOUND NO FUEL IN THE SCANNED REACTORS.

THE REACTORS ARE EMPTY!WHERE IS THE CORIUM?AND NOW THE LAND GRABS BEGIN!NOW THE GOVERNMENT THERE CONSPIRES TO HIDE THE EVIDENCE ON THE VERY LANDS OF THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING THE MOST!

IF THE LANDOWNERS REFUSE TO SELL, JUST LIKE HERE IN THE U.S., THE GOVERNMENT CAN EITHER TAKE THEIR LAND OR CLAIM THEY MUST "LEASE" IT AT A CRIMINALLY LOW PRICE.

Landowners near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have voiced frustration at the government’s plan to buy up their properties to build intermediate storage facilities for radioactive soil and other waste.

Ministry officials said they plan to purchase land at around half of its value before the nuclear accident.

The officials said compensation for housing would depend on the age of buildings. They said landowners who decline to sell but allow usage of their plots would be paid 70 percent of the purchase price."

WHY NOT SECURE A PERMANENT "WASTE STORAGE SITE" NOW, NOT MORE TEMPORARY STORAGE?

WHY CONTAMINATE YET OTHER TEMPORARY SITES WHEN A PERMANENT SITE COULD BE HAD NOW?

OR CAN ANY SUCH "PERMANENT" SITE BE HAD IN A NATION WITH SO LITTLE LAND MASS, SO LITTLE ROOM FOR SUCH A SITE WITHOUT ROBBING PERHAPS MORE INFLUENTIAL, OR URBAN CITIZENS?

These thousands and thousands of bags all hold radioactive waste and contaminated soil.

They’re piled up across Fukushima Prefecture at about 900 temporary storage sites.

The storage facilities will hold the waste for about 30 years.

Central government officials are still trying to find a permanent storage site outside of Fukushima."

[I STRONGLY SUGGEST THE BAGS BE PERMANENTLY STORED IN THE ANAL ORIFICES OF EVERY TEPCO EXECUTIVE, EVERY AGREEABLE ABE STAFF MEMBER WHO LOVES TO BOW TO TEPCO, THE 'HIGH-UPS AT THE NUCLEAR ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION (NERC), THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA), AND ALL INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO REFUSE TO STEP IN AND GET THIS CLEANED UP, NO MATTER HOW WE HAVE TO DO IT.]

BUT THEY WANT TO STORE ALL THE WASTE AS FAR FROM TOKYO AS POSSIBLE, AND FAR FROM THEIR HOMES, THOSE INVOLVED IN THE UNENDING POISONING OF THE PLANET! DUMP IT ON THOSE ALREADY HOMELESS AND SICK AND SUFFERING! THEY'LL STORE IT "SAFELY", DON'T WORRY!THEY "PROMISE"...AGAIN.

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TONS OF WASTE AND GROWING DAILY.

WE DON'T KNOW HOW SECURE THESE TEMPORARY SITES ARE, NOR IF THESE FIGURES ARE CORRECT.

TEPCO HAS LIED SO MUCH IN THE PAST, AS HAS THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT, THAT THEIR OWN CITIZENS WON'T TRUST THEM ANYMORE, SO, WHY WOULD WE TRUST ANYTHING THEY HAVE A HAND IN?

THIS SHOULD BE AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERN, AN INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY FOR HELP FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DO AS THEIR GOVERNMENT TELLS THEM. MANY ARE TOO POOR TO LEAVE, TO ESCAPE, TO GO SOMEWHERE SAFE.AND MANY CLING TO HOPE THAT SOMEHOW, SOME DAY, THEY CAN SAFELY RETURN TO THE LAND SO MANY GENERATIONS OF THEIR FAMILIES LIVED ON.

THOSE WHO LOSE THAT HOPE ARE ALL IN DANGER OF SUICIDAL THOUGHTS.THE LEAST THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT CAN DO IS PROVIDE COUNSEL, HELP, SOME WAY TO REACH OUT AND FIND A WAY TO EVACUATE AS MANY AS NEED EVACUATION, REMOVE THE PARENTS WITH CHILDREN, SAVE LIVES!

SAVE LIVES, NOT KILL THEM ALL! THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS ABOUT THE MAFIA THERE, THE ONES CREATING MORE PROBLEMS FOR SURVIVORS TO COPE WITH, BUT DOES NOTHING TO STOP THIS EITHER!"The Japanese mafia, known as the Yakuza, is one of the largest criminal organizations in the world, and has craftily infiltrated the Fukushima cleanup industry. With hundreds of subcontractors that make it hard to monitor the money trail, most of the estimated 50 Yakuza gangs in Fukushima leapt to the task of recruiting workers – sometimes through unseemly means, like rounding up the homeless. They can then skim their wages, keep the profits and even violently retaliate against those who object."

SUICIDES UP IN JAPAN?WE CAN SEE WHY! WHAT I CANNOT SEE IS WHO CAN HELP THOSE WHOM THEJAPANESE GOVERNMENT KEEPS KILLING!